Existentialist Interpretation of Themes in Tolstoyan
Literature
Submitted By:
Suyash Saxena
MA Philosophy,
Centre for Philosophy,
JNU
2 | P a g e
1. Introduction
The aim of this paper is to give an existentialist reading to certain themes in Tolstoyan
literature. For this purpose three themes have been taken up for discussion: Death, Desires
and Faith and Morality. Each of those three themes has been dealt with in three different
segments in this essay.
In each of the three segments an attempt is made at interpreting that particular theme as
situated in the works of Tolstoy in the light of Existentialist philosophy. In the first segment
that deals with Death, the focus is mainly on the interpretation of Tolstoy’s ideas on Death in
the light of Heidegger’s perspective on death. Ideas taken up for consideration in this
segment are ‘authenticity’, ‘human finitude’ and ‘death of the own-most self’ as developed by
Heidegger and dealt with in works of Tolstoy like The Death of Ivan Illytch, War and Peace
and Anna Karenina. The discussion on death which begins and engages with the questions on
meaning of life gets intertwined with the role of desires in providing a meaning to life. This
leads to the second segment—a discussion on Desires. In the second segment, the focus is
mainly on Camus’ idea of absurdity and the endeavour is interalia, to interpret the suicide of
Anna Karenina in the light of Camus’ idea of absurdity. This discussion leads to questions
such as “Who finally emerges as the moral hero of Anna Karenina?” and “If Tolstoy can be
compared with Camus can he be categorised as an absurdist like Camus or he sides more with
the existentialists like Kierkegaard and Shestov?” These questions are dealt with in the third
segment of the essay on Faith and Morality. This segment concludes that though Tolstoy
follows closely with Camus’ idea of absurdity, he does not follow him till the very end to
draw identical conclusions as those of Camus. He diverges from Camus at a critical juncture
and relates more with existentialist like Kierkegaard.
All these three discussions, though have an independence of their own, are inter-related such
that one discussion leads to the other. The endeavour is to bring out a glimpse of the
Tolstoyan way of life in its totality through these discussions on Death, Desires and Faith and
Morality.
3 | P a g e
2. Death
“Don’t be surprised at me. I’m still the same.... But there is another woman in me, I’m afraid
of her: she loved that man, and I tried to hate you, and could not forget about her that used to
be. I’m not that woman. Now I’m my real self, all myself. I’m dying now...”
-Tolstoy in Anna Karenina1
A constant theme that runs through all major works of Tolstoy has been well articulated in a
question that Tolstoy raises in his Confession. “Is there any meaning in my life that the
inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy?”2 This sustained and constant philosophical
search for the ‘True’ meaning of life has been the underlying theme in all his major works.
Tolstoy once wrote that “The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the power of my soul,
whom I have tried to portray in all his beauty, who has been, is, and will be beautiful,
is Truth.” The point to ponder is that the word Truth has been mentioned with a capital ‘T’
indicating the ultimate nature of that Truth; that the aim of Tolstoy’s philosophical
endeavours through his literature is to reach out to the ultimate meaning of life. It is in this
reference that it was said at the start of this discussion that ‘underlying philosophical theme
of Tolstoy’s works was the search for the True meaning of life,’ wherein the word ‘True’ was
spelled with a capital ‘T’ to indicate the special meaning that Tolstoy has invested in the
word.
The idea of death plays an all important part in this philosophical search of Tolstoy. As a
philosophical investigation of Tolstoy’s works shall reveal, his search for True meaning of
life is inevitably related to his idea of death. This relation can be closely articulated in a
single sentence by Mitch Albolm, an author of a recent novel Tuesdays with Morrie who
comes very close to Tolstoyan philosophy when he remarks “The truth is, once you learn how
to die, you learn how to live.” The answer that Tolstoy appears to be reaching towards to the
question ‘Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not
destroy?’ which Tolstoy is trying to reach out to in all his major works is that there is no such
meaning to life that death destroys, rather it is only the death that creates the meaning of life.
1 Lines are taken from Part III of the novel. Anna says those line to Karenin while Vronsky is sitting beside her
and lamenting her looming death (though, as it turns out, death eludes her and she recovers) 2 Tolstoy, Confession
4 | P a g e
Death is not a symbol of destruction but a token of creation. Death is not a dead end but it is
the root of possibilities.
An encounter with death acquaints oneself to the most authentic meaning of one’s life. Dying
is one thing that the other cannot do for oneself. Dying is the most personal moment—when
the individual is brought face to face with his individual self—his most authentic self. Death
as a cause of authenticity in life is the idea that brings Tolstoy close to the Existentialist
realm. We shall investigate this relationship between authenticity and death and hence
between Tolstoyan philosophy and Existentialism. However, prior to that attempt to
understand how Tolstoy uses death to reveal his philosophy of life in his novels by making
reference to the particular incidences wherein closeness to death made his characters
understand the meaning of their lives. In short, we shall endeavour to understand the role of
death in Tolstoy’s literary works.
The best starting point for that endeavour would be the work that Tolstoy wrote almost ten
years after writing Anna Karenina—a period that Tolstoy described as a ‘dark tunnel’ of ‘a
spiritual crisis.’ His novella The Death of Ivan Illych was the end of that tunnel. The central
theme of the novella was to philosophise death with an attempt to offer an answer to the
question that has always philosophically tormented Tolstoy and the one we stated at the
outset of this discussion: “Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting
me does not destroy?”3
The novella revolves around a man- Ivan Illych who sustains some injury which, as it later
turns out, is life threatening. Faced with death Ivan is forced to ask philosophical questions
on his the way he led his life and the nature of his death. “Can it be that I have not lived as
one ought?”4 Imminent moment of death therefore serves as an opportunity that illuminates
the before Ivan the ‘Truest’ meaning of life. The meaning of life according to Tolstoy lay in
‘Love’ (again which must be spelled with a capital ‘Love’ to emphasise its universal nature.)
“Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all
else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here.”5 One hour before his death Ivan he
has a moment of clarity in which he realises that he had not been living his life well because
his life has been centred all around himself. Now he feels pity for the people he is leaving
behind and an unconditional love for his wife and daughter whom he had hated in the past
3 Ibid
4 Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Illych
5 Tolstoy, War and Peace, Book IV, Chapter IX
5 | P a g e
few months. His lack of faith and even contempt for virtues of love had been expressed only
a few days before death when he said, “But it seems to me that a man cannot and ought not to
say that he loves (...) Because it will always be a lie. As though it were a strange sort of
discovery that someone is in love! (...) It seems to me, he went on, that people who solemnly
utter those words, 'I love you,' either deceive themselves, or what's still worse, deceive
others.”6 It was the moment of death that was the moment of philosophical and spiritual
awakening when he realised the futility of a self-centred life without a genuine universal
‘Love’ for others.
Ivan Illych is a common ordinary man. Tolstoy describes him as: “Ivan Illych's life had been
most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.”7 It must be noted here that such a
characterisation is a stark departure from the grandiose characters created by Tolstoy in War
and Peace and Anna Karenina. Tolstoy’s portrayal of an ordinary and common man as the
central character of his story is symbolic of the fact that Ivan’s philosophising of life and
death as a result of anxiety as well fear of death is something that affects everyone, each
individual, every ordinary person. Each one of us knows that one is going to die, but no one
believes it. “The example of a syllogism that he had studied in Kiesewetter's logic: Caius is a
man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal, had throughout his whole life seemed to him
right only in relation to Caius, but not to him at all.”8 It is only when one is confronted with
one’s own death that one gets acquainted with one’s True and authentic self. One’s own death
is the realisation of one’s own finitude, temporality, limits and facticity.
This interpretation can be directly correlated to Heidegger’s perspective on death which has
been elaborated in Being and time within a specific chapter on death. Walter Kauffmann, the
celebrated Existentialist scholar in his essay Existentialism and Death wrote “Heidegger on
death is for the most part an unacknowledged commentary on The Death of Ivan Ilyitch.”9
Heidegger has dealt with various issues pertaining to death in order to elaborate the Being of
the Dasein in Time i.e. to highlight the essential element of temporality in Being. The
awareness of this temporality or finitude in time, argues Heidegger, is a necessity for an
authentic existence of the self. And coming to terms with one’s own death is central to the
understanding and awareness of one’s finitude. The term that Heidegger uses to refer to this
6 Ibid
7 Ibid
8 Ibid
9 Walter Kauffmann, Existentialism and Death
6 | P a g e
awareness of one’s own death is ‘being-towards-death’ and he qualifies the term by saying
that as soon as the Dasein comes into Being “he is already old enough to die;”10
that is to say
that being-towards-death or the awareness of one’s own death is central to the idea of Being
of the Dasein. Therefore, the awareness of one’s own death (‘being-towards-death’) is what
gives fullest meaning to one’s life (‘Being’.) In the same argument Heidegger refers to those
who are ‘coward’ enough to lack the fullest awareness of their individual death as ‘they-self’
or inauthentic beings. The they-self is driven by the ‘crowd’ rather than by their own
individual, authentic free choices. The idea of authenticity is central not only to Heidegger’s
philosophy but also to the entire Existentialist movement. Through Heidegger’s arguments
this central idea of Existentialism can be seen to be squarely dependent on Dasein’s being in
time which in turn is dependent on being-towards-death or a direct awareness of one’s own
death. Being of they-self is inauthentic because it suffers a “coward fear” of its own death
and hence shies away from its direct confrontation.
The essential aspect to note in this argument is that Heidegger is concerned not with the
awareness of death in general. He is specifically concerned with ‘my death’ or the death of
own-self. We are regularly acquainted with the death of others but that does not lead to
authenticity in life. Authenticity arises only when one is confronted with one’s “ownmost”
death. Heidegger writes, “One of these days one will die too, in the end; but right now it has
nothing to do with us."11
It is here Heidegger and Tolstoy come very close to each other and
their philosophies seem to overlap. Tolstoy in The Death of Ivan Illych writes, “the very fact
of the death of someone close to them aroused in all who heard about it, as always, a feeling
of delight that he had died and they hadn't.”12
This overlap of Tolstoy’s philosophy of death with that of Heidegger leads to another aspect
of conformity: in defining the attitude towards death. Tolstoy’s novella The Death of Ivan
Illych distinguishes between two attitudes towards death: fear of death and an awareness of
own-self’s death. This distinction is made by Heidegger and other Existentialists like
Kierkegaard as well. Heidegger rejects the fear of death as a characteristic of inauthentic
being of they-self. He favours a positive anxiety which arises from the awareness of human
finitude and which is a necessity for possibility and freedom. Fear is always directed at
particular object, i.e. fear is always of something. Anxiety, on the other hand, is a state of
10
Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 289 11
Heidegger, Being and Time p.297 12
Tolstoy, Death of Ivan Illych
7 | P a g e
mind and does not need an object for its sustenance. Whereas fear attaches the individual to
an object, anxiety frees him of those attachments and brings to him freedom and possibility.
This distinction between fear and anxiety is very well articulated by Kierkegaard.
Kierkegaard connects the state of anxiety to Nothingness. He writes, “What effect does
Nothing produce? It begets anxiety.. .. One almost never sees the concept of anxiety dealt
with in psychology, and I must therefore call attention to the fact that it is different from fear
and similar concepts which refer to something definite, whereas anxiety is the reality of
freedom as possibility anterior to possibility.”13
The crux of the argument is that existential
anxiety or angst arises from the condition of freedom and possibilities. One could imagine
oneself standing on the cliff where one has absolute freedom to choose to fall or not to fall.
There is nothing that would prevent if one chooses to fall. This freedom to actualise any
possibility and thus the individual being squarely and solely responsible for his choices and
destiny is what creates the state of anxiety. “Man is condemned to be free” says Sartre.
Anxiety is not fear of falling off the cliff but it is the state of mind that anything is possible if
the free individual so chooses. Therefore, anxiety as an awareness of freedom is a
constructive psyche and not a destructive one which is fear.
Tolstoy makes the same distinction. Ivan feared his death till the time he came face to face
with it. Fear was inauthenticity or shying away from one’s own Being. But an awareness of
one’s death leads to authenticity in one’s life and hence gives meaning to one’s life. This
authenticity displaces fear and gives the individual freedom to make subjective choices by
removing the object-directedness of fear. This is what happens to Ivan at the precise hour of
his death. Tolstoy in describing the fear of death that torments Ivan writes, “Morning or
night, Friday or Sunday, made no difference, everything was the same: the gnawing,
excruciating, incessant pain; that awareness of life irrevocably passing but not yet gone; that
dreadful, loathsome death, the only reality, relentlessly closing in on him; and that same
endless lie. What did days, weeks, or hours matter?”14
When the hour of death approaches,
Ivan on self reflection rejects this fear in the pursuance of freedom and Love. Tolstoy writes,
“He sought his former accustomed fear of death and did not find it."Where is it? What
death?" There was no fear because there was no death. In place of death there was light.”15
13
Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety 14
Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Illych 15
Ibid
8 | P a g e
In the end Ivan heard someone say, “He is gone.” But he said to himself “Death is finished. It
is no more” and took his last breath.”16
Tolstoy, therefore, sees death as something that gives meaning to one’s life. The possibility of
death is therefore directly linked to the Truth that Tolstoy is looking for and which always is
‘the hero of his tale.’ The Truth, for Tolstoy, is none but Love (capital ‘L’ indicate its
universal and ultimate nature) and the encounter with one’s “ownmost” death is often the
moment when the Truth is revealed. Let us elucidate this point further by making reference to
some other works of Tolstoy.
Numerous instances can be quoted from War and Peace wherein characters undergo
psychological transformation or spiritual and philosophical awakening only when they come
face to face with their deaths in a war. Each and every character of the novel discovers a new
meaning to his/her life after war brought them close to their death; be it Andrei Bolkonsky
who directly fought the war on the battlefield, or Pierre who was in a way caught in the war;
or the Rostov family who were displaced from their house and estate in Moscow. Let us
focus a bit on one character who encountered death closely twice- in Battle of Austerlitz and
in Borodino which changed his life completely: Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. Andrei, one day
before the Battle of Austerlitz and says to himself, “Death, wounds, the loss of family- I fear
nothing. And precious and dear as many persons are to me- father, sister, wife- those dearest
to me- yet dreadful and unnatural as it seems, I would give them all at once for a moment of
glory, of triumph over men, of love from men I don’t know and never shall know, for the
love of these men here.”17
Bolkonsky was an ambitious man the meaning of life for him was
the achievement of desires and goals, of glory and honour. The next day as the battle begins,
Bolkonsky fights valiantly but is almost mortally wounded. He is rescued by Napoleon
himself who was inspired by his extraordinary gallantry. However, for the time he laid
wounded on the ground, he gazed at the lofty skies and those lofty skies alongside imminent
death become the cause of spiritual and philosophical awakening. He says to himself “how
differently do those clouds glide across that lofty infinite sky! How was it I did not see that
lofty sky before? And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All is vanity, all
falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing, but that. But even it does not
exist, there is nothing but quiet and peace. Thank God!...’18
The ‘peace’ that Bolkonsky
16
Ibid 17
Tolstoy, War and Peace, Book III Chapter XII 18
Tolstoy, War and Peace, Book III Chapter XVII
9 | P a g e
found not a physical peace after the end of the battle but a mental peace as the war within him
subsides and he finds true meaning of his life beyond ‘vanities’ and ‘falsehoods.’ Prof.
Andrew D. Kaufman, a scholar of Tolstoyan literature has argued that the ‘War’ in War and
Peace refers to a mental war within ourselves that rages due to inability to understand deeper
meanings of life, inauthenticity and all that Bolkonsky has called “vanity” and peace is peace
from that mental war that results from comprehending the True meaning of one’s life.
The second battle that Bolkonsky fights—The Battle of Borodino is again very crucial as it
lends him another opportunity to reach closer to the Truth of life. Bolkonsky went into the
war as a bitter and dejected man whose fiancé Natasha Rostova had attempted to elope with
Anatole Kuragin- handsome and amoral pleasure seeker who was also in the Russian army
alongside Bolkonsky. He was determined never to forgive Natasha who violated his trust and
to take his revenge on Kuragin. His sister Masha tries to persuade Bolkonsky to forgive both
for his own peace but Bolkonsky refuses to give in to those “womanly qualities.” In the
Battle of Borodino, Bolkonsky sustains mortal injuries and is being operated upon by crude
surgical equipments in a make-shift army camp. As he groans in pain he realises that next to
his stretcher lies Kuragin who himself is breathing his last. Both men shake hands as a
gesture forgiveness, love and departure. Bolkonsky even forgives Natasha and expresses a
desire to see her. Finally he dies while being take care of by her. His final words on his lips
were ‘One must Love, One must Live, One must forgive, One must Believe.’
Finally we must conclude this discussion on death by talking about the passage from Anna
Karenina that was quoted at the very beginning. “Don’t be surprised at me. I’m still the
same.... But there is another woman in me, I’m afraid of her: she loved that man, and I tried
to hate you, and could not forget about her that used to be. I’m not that woman. Now I’m my
real self, all myself. I’m dying now...” Anna said those lines to her husband Karenin while
she felt she was about to die in giving birth to Vronsky’s baby girl Annie. Vronsky is sitting
next to her with his face buried in his hands while Karenin enters. Anna at that moment of
closeness with her death realises the futility and meaninglessness of all the unchaste desires
and urges within which she has endeavoured to find a meaning of her life. But an encounter
with death debunks all the falsehood and inauthenticity and exposes Anna to the Truth of life,
which for Tolstoy is universal Love. In that extraordinary moment, she makes an
extraordinary gesture- she asks her lover- Vrosnky to uncover his face and hold her
husband’s hands and ask for forgiveness. She says Karnin was a saint and would forgive both
10 | P a g e
of them. Karenin who had developed some bitterness against Anna at that moment of Anna’s
imminent death, at once forgives both Vronsky and Anna.
“Uncover your face—look at him! He’s a saint,’ she said. ‘Oh! uncover your face, do uncover
it!’ she said angrily. ‘Alexey Alexandrovitch (Anna’s husband), do uncover his face! I want
to see him.’ Alexey Alexandrovitch took Vronsky’s hands and drew them away from his
face, which was awful with the expression of agony and shame upon it. ‘Give him your hand.
Forgive him.”19
One’s own death is the most personal experience in one’s life. The moment of death is the
moment of greatest authenticity when the individual removes all falsehoods and garbs and
discovers his innermost and authentic self. It is the moment of death which gives the
individual an opportunity to understand the meaning of life. It is the temporal finitude caused
by death that gives a meaning to human life.
Throughout our lives we try to grapple with the meaning of our existence and make constant
endeavour to capture it with reason and understand it within a rational framework. Our goals,
ambitions and desires are all directed towards that attempt to rationally understand life. How
far is that successful or even meaningful? We shall investigate it in the next discussion on
Desires.
19
Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part IV Chapter 17
11 | P a g e
3. Desires
“Sometimes she did not know what she feared, what she desired: whether she feared or desired
what had been or what would be, and precisely what she desired, she did not know.”
-Tolstoy in Anna Karenina
We had started our previous discussion on Death with an observation that the central theme
that runs through all of Tolstoyan literature is an endeavour to search for the True meaning of
life, and an answer to the question that Tolstoy asks in Confession “Is there any meaning in
my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy?”20
This philosophical lure to
search for the True meaning of life brings Tolstoy to investigate and philosophise the role of
Desires in human life. The role of desires is central to the meaning, or even the definition of
life. George Bernard Shaw had once said, “As long as I have a want, (desire) I have a reason
for living. Satisfaction is death.”21
Tolstoy sets out to philosophically examine this pivotal
role of desires in giving meaning to our lives.
With reference to Anna Karenina Logan Spies, in his book Tolstoy and Chekhov writes,
“Tolstoy’s theme is always the desire of people to be better than they are, and their failure or
partial success.”22
This failure of Tolstoy’s characters to make their desires reach fruition or
the failure of desires to culminate into happiness is not a mere accident but an intended
purpose of the great writer and philosopher. The philosophical point that Tolstoy wants to
highlight is that humans inevitably commit the mistake of attempting to understand the
meaning and purpose of life in terms of their desires and therefore inevitably confuse
achievement of desires with realisation of happiness. Tolstoy debunks the idea that mere
achievement or accomplishment of a desire shall result in happiness. Happiness or True
meaning of life cannot be grasped merely by attempting to realise one’s desires. The entire
novel Anna Karenina is devoted to bring out this philosophical idea.
Vronsky had desired Anna with all his heart. He believed that if he could be united with Anna
he will have achieved all the happiness he would ever want. When Vronsky met Anna at the
railway station, the conversation between the two brings out the deep feelings that Vronsky
20
Tolstoy, Confession 21
George Bernard Shaw, Overruled (1912) 22
Logan Spies, Tolstoy and Chekhov, Chapter 7- Tolstoy’s Morality in ‘Anna Karenina’
12 | P a g e
had developed for Anna. “‘I didn’t know you were going. What are you coming for?’ she
said, letting fall the hand with which she had grasped the door post. And irrepressible delight
and eagerness shone in her face. ‘What am I coming for?’ he repeated, looking straight into
her eyes. ‘You know that I have come to be where you are,’ he said; ‘I can’t help it.’”23
However, as Vronsky is finally able to realise what he had so strongly desired did not find all
happiness that he had expected. Tolstoy writes, “Vronsky, meanwhile, in spite of the
complete realization of what he had so long desired, was not perfectly happy. He soon felt
that the realisation of his desires gave him no more than a grain of sand out of the mountain
of happiness he had expected. It showed him the mistake men make in picturing to themselves
happiness as the realization of their desires. For a time after joining his life to hers, and
putting on civilian dress, he had felt all the delight of freedom in general, of which he had
known nothing before, and of freedom in his love — and he was content, but not for long. He
was soon aware that there was springing up in his heart a desire for desires — longing.
Without conscious intention he began to clutch at every passing caprice, taking it for a desire
and an object.”24
Therefore, despite our attempts to see a meaning in our desires and our actions we are
confronted with despair. It is at this juncture that Tolstoy is coming in proximity with Abert
Camus’ idea of absurdity.
The essential point Camus is making in Myth of Sisyphus (and also in his other works like
Suicide) is that each one of us is driven by a desire for happiness and there is a hope that our
actions towards our desires will bring us happiness. We charter the course of our lives and
actions on the presumption that the world shall reciprocate our rational judgements such as
that the realisation of our desire for say money shall deliver us happiness. However, we are
forced into a state of despair and anguish when we realise that there is a disconnection
between the world and the self and our ‘appetite for clarity’, ‘insistence on familiarity’ and
our desire for happiness are not reciprocated by the external world. “Man stands face to face
with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd
is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the
world.”25
23
Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part I Chapter 30 24
Tolstoy, Anna Karenina Part II Chapter 8 25
Camus, Myth of Sisyphus
13 | P a g e
Let us dwell upon this ‘confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence
of the world’ out of which emanates the idea of the ‘absurd.’ Camus argues that there is an
inherent desire in the human being to look for certainty and rational clarity in the world and
then construct his actions in such a way that one is able to achieve what one desires.
However, this rational certainty, clarity and familiarity, much as it is desired, may not exist in
the world confronting the individual with meaninglessness and absurdity in life as is being
reflected in the passage from War and Peace about Vronsky quoted earlier. There is a
confrontation between what the individual human subject wants to find in the world and what
the world has to offer in its essence. Individual attempts to grasp the world within its power
to reason, but the world has a dominant irrational element, and from there the confrontation
begins. It is in this context that Camus said that ‘man stands face to face with the irrational.’
“He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. But all he gets is an absurd
emanating from the confrontation between his rational desires and the longing for clarity and
the irrational nature of the humanised world.”26
He exemplifies this disconnect or the contradiction and how it leads to disappointments. He
writes, “A man wants to earn money in order to be happy, and his whole effort and the best of
a life are devoted to the earning of that money. Happiness is forgotten; the means are taken
for the end.”27
The unflinching faith that earning money would beget happiness in life is
based on a presumption that there is rational clarity in the world—as if our actions towards
earning money, or for that matter realising any desire, are connected to our achieving
happiness and peace in life through a rational chain of cause and effect. However, that is not
the case because the humanised world cannot be understood through rationality alone. In
order to describe this desire to capture the humanised world within a rational essence Camus
uses the term ‘Nostalgia for Unity’—making an allusion to the belief that the humanised
world is unified through a rational essence. “But with its first move this world cracks and
tumbles: an infinite number of shimmering fragments is offered to the understanding. We
must despair of ever reconstructing the familiar, calm surface which would give us peace of
heart.”28
This summarises the essence of Camus’ argument. We despair for the peace of our
heart that can be achieved only through reconstructing the ‘familiar, calm surface.’
26
Ibid 27
Ibid 28
Ibid
14 | P a g e
In light of the above argument views of Camus specifically to the subject of desire can be
articulated in a single line of his: “To will (i.e. to desire or want) is to stir up paradoxes.”29
The spirit in which Camus makes that remark is the same spirit in which Tolstoy writes, (as
has been quoted earlier) “He soon felt that the realisation of his desires gave him no more
than a grain of sand out of the mountain of happiness he had expected. It showed him the
mistake men make in picturing to themselves happiness as the realization of their desires.”30
This theme has been very well brought out in various events and instances in War and Peace.
Let us take into consideration one such instance which we have already made reference to in
the previous discussion: The Battle of Austerlitz. One day before the battle Prince Andrei
Bolkonsky is quoted saying to himself that all that he wants and desires in life is glory and
honour. The same is reflected in the conversation between Andrei and his father Count
Bolkonsky who insisted that the glory of the Bolkonsky family was earned through
bloodshed and sacrifice and he must not hesitate even to lay down his life in military service
and service to the nation in order to maintain the glory and honour of the family. Therefore,
right before the Battle of Austerlitz, Bolkonsky makes to himself the following speech: “I
don’t know what will happen and don’t want to know, and can’t, but if I want this- want
glory, want to be known to men, want to be loved by them, it is not my fault that I want it
and want nothing but that and live only for that. Yes, for that alone! (...) Death, wounds, the
loss of family- I fear nothing. And precious and dear as many persons are to me- father,
sister, wife- those dearest to me- yet dreadful and unnatural as it seems, I would give them all
at once for a moment of glory, of triumph over men, of love from men I don’t know and
never shall know, for the love of these men here.”31
This is precisely what Camus has called the nostalgia of unity. Bolkonsky desires glory and
honour and in order to achieve them he fights the battle. The desire is so intense that even
goes to an extent of defining the fundamental purpose of his life as the achievement of his
desire—“that I want it and want nothing but that and live only for that.” Little did he know
that realisation of his desire neither could lead him to the fundamental meaning of his life nor
could it deliver him to happiness.
Both meaning and happiness he achieved only when he sustained death threatening injuries in
the war and he came face to face with Nothingness, Emptiness and hence Peace. Tolstoy
29
Ibid 30
Tolstoy, Anna Karenina Part II Chapter 8 31
Tolstoy, War and Peace, Book III Chapter12
15 | P a g e
writes: “He opened his eyes, hoping to see how the struggle of the Frenchmen with the
gunners ended, whether the red-haired gunner had been killed or not and whether the cannon
had been captured or saved. But he saw nothing. Above him there was now nothing but the
sky- the lofty sky, not clear yet still immeasurably lofty, with gray clouds gliding slowly
across it. ‘How quiet, peaceful, and solemn; not at all as I ran,’ thought Prince Andrew- ‘not
as we ran, shouting and fighting, not at all as the gunner and the Frenchman with frightened
and angry faces struggled for the mop: how differently do those clouds glide across that lofty
infinite sky! How was it I did not see that lofty sky before? And how happy I am to have
found it at last! Yes! All is vanity, all falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing,
nothing, but that. But even it does not exist, there is nothing but quiet and peace. Thank
God!’”32
Tolstoy, in this passage, has exemplified the statement that Camus had made that ‘to
desire (as Bolkonsky did prior to the Battle of Austerlitz) was to stir up paradoxes.’
Happiness is achieved by rejecting falseness of such desires and the claim that one could
rationally grasp the essence of life and humanised world.
Regarding the rational understanding of human affairs Tolstoy gives specific arguments in
the two Epilogues of War and Peace. Let us consider the following example that was given
by Tolstoy as a part of his elaborate argument. Tolstoy writes:
“A bee settling on a flower has stung a child. And the child is afraid of bees and declares that
bees exist to sting people. A poet admires the bee sucking from the chalice of a flower and
says it exists to suck the fragrance of flowers. A beekeeper, seeing the bee collect pollen from
flowers and carry it to the hive, says that it exists to gather honey. Another beekeeper who
has studied the life of the hive more closely says that the bee gathers pollen dust to feed the
young bees and rear a queen, and that it exists to perpetuate its race. A botanist notices that
the bee flying with the pollen of a male flower to a pistil fertilizes the latter, and sees in this
the purpose of the bee’s existence. Another, observing the migration of plants, notices that
the bee helps in this work, and may say that in this lies the purpose of the bee. But the
ultimate purpose of the bee is not exhausted by the first, the second, or any of the processes
the human mind can discern. The higher the human intellect rises in the discovery of these
purposes, the more obvious it becomes, that the ultimate purpose is beyond our
32
Tolstoy, War and Peace, Book III Chapter XVII
16 | P a g e
comprehension. All that is accessible to man is the relation of the life of the bee to other
manifestations of life. And so it is with the purpose of historic characters and nations.”33
Proximity to Camus’ idea of absurdity and meaninglessness is quite evident in this particular
passage from Tolstoy.
A much apparent anticipation of Camus is evident in the entire series of events that led to
Anna’s suicide and most specifically it is made manifest in Anna’s interior monologue that
has been devoted full four chapters prior to her suicide.
Chapter 28 of Part 8 of Anna Karenina gives a vivid description of Anna’s psyche right
before her suicide. The chapter is devoted to the description of the chain of thoughts going
through Anna’s mind through an interior monologue as she passes through the streets in her
carriage to go to the railway station. It was a bright summer day, with a brilliant sunshine
after the rains. The streets as lively as they can ever be. Despite liveliness around her, all that
tormented Anna sees and feels are her cooling love with Vronsky, her jealousy towards the
women she suspected Vronsky was attracted to or even attracted in the past like Kitty, and
pangs for her son Seriozha whom she had abandoned when she left Karenin. It is not possible
to give a detailed description of the situation but a paragraph quoted from that chapter can
give an insight into the Anna’s psyche:
“As she sat in a corner of the comfortable carriage, that hardly swayed on its supple springs,
while the grays trotted swiftly, in the midst of the unceasing rattle of wheels and the changing
impressions in the pure air, Anna ran over the events of the last days, and she saw her
position quite differently from how it had seemed at home. Now the thought of death seemed
no longer so terrible and so clear to her, and death itself no longer seemed so inevitable. Now
he blamed herself for the humiliation to which she had lowered herself. ‘I entreat him to
forgive me. I have given in to him. I have owned myself in fault. What for? Can’t I live
without him?’ And leaving unanswered the question how she was going to live without him,
she fell to reading the signs on the shops. ‘Office and warehouse. Dental surgeon. Yes, I’ll
tell Dolly all about it. She doesn’t like Vronsky. I shall be sick and ashamed, but I’ll tell her.
She loves me, and I’ll follow her advice. I won’t give in to him; I won’t let him train me as he
pleases. Filippov, bun shop. They say they send their dough to Petersburg. The Moscow
water is so good for it. Ah, the springs at Mitishtchen, and the pancakes!’ And she
33
Tolstoy, War and Peace, Epilogue I, Chapter IV
17 | P a g e
remembered how, long, long ago, when she was a girl of seventeen, she had gone with her
aunt to Troitsa. ‘Riding, too. Was that really me, with red hands? How much that seemed to
me then splendid and out of reach has become worthless, while what I had then has gone out
of my reach forever! Could I ever have believed then that I could come to such humiliation?
How conceited and self-satisfied he will be when he gets my note! But I will show him....
How horrid that paint smells!”34
It is quite evident that Anna has reached the breaking point—a juncture where she has come
face to face with the futility and meaninglessness of all that she had desired. “Aren’t we all
flung into the world only to hate each other, and so to torture ourselves and each other;”35
asks Anna. Further she says, “I’m not jealous, but I’m unsatisfied. But...’ she opened her lips,
and shifted her place in the carriage in the excitement, aroused by the thought that suddenly
struck her. ‘If I could be anything but a mistress, passionately caring for nothing but his
caresses; but I can’t and I don’t care to be anything else. And by that desire I rouse aversion
in him, and he rouses fury in me, and it cannot be different.”36
Camus would argue that Anna has confronted the absurd. Anna is being tormented by that
confrontation. Camus would then assert that the individual has to make a choice- whether to
live with that confrontation—that awareness of the absurd or to take a leap to escape the
absurd. From the moment absurdity is recognized, it becomes a passion, “the most harrowing
of all.” “But whether or not one can live with one’s passions, whether or not one can accept
their law, which is to burn the heart they simultaneously exalt—that is the whole question.”37
One way and the easiest way to escape the torment of this most ‘harrowing passion’ is to
commit suicide. Anna chooses this easiest way. “‘What can I want? All I can want is that you
should not desert me, as you think of doing,’ she said, understanding all he had not uttered.
‘But that I don’t want; that’s secondary. I want love, and there is none. So then all is over.’”38
This is how Anna ends her life. However, the question we are left with in the end is ‘Was
committing suicide the only course available to Anna?’ As from the plot one can say that the
only available course for Anna was to commit suicide as the plot has been so structured that
since the very beginning Anna’s character is gradually matured towards the suicide.
34
Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part VII Chapter 28 35
Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part VII Chapter 30 36
Ibid 37
Camus, Myth of Sisyphus 38
Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part VII Chapter 24
18 | P a g e
However, from a philosophical perspective and leaving the plot aside for a while, the answer
might be a bit different. We shall investigate that in the next discussion on ‘Faith and
Morality.’
19 | P a g e
4. Faith and Morality
“What we must live for and what is good. I and all men have only one firm, incontestable,
clear knowledge, and that knowledge cannot be explained by the reason—it is outside it, and
has no causes and can have no effects.
‘If goodness has causes, it is not goodness; if it has effects, a reward, it is not goodness
either. So goodness is outside the chain of cause and effect.
‘And yet I know it, and we all know it.
‘What could be a greater miracle than that?”
-Tolstoy, Anna Karenina39
We concluded the previous discussion on Desires with a question: ‘Is committing suicide the
only course available to a person in Anna’s situation?’ Let us begin this discussion by
addressing that question.
For Camus the confrontation with absurdity is the moment of making a free choice: whether
to live with the absurd or to escape it by devising some means. Camus talks of three
perspectives of looking at the ‘humanised world’: the rationalists’, existentialists’ and the
absurdists’. Rationalist perspective is a broad generic category which included within its
rubrics all thinkers who endeavoured to explain the humanised world within a rational
framework on the presumption that world is universally rational. Of critical importance here
is Camus’ differentiation between existentialists and the absurdists. He argues that
existentialists like the absurdists, are concerned with the absurd and are aware of it. But
unlike the absurdists they are unwilling to confront and live with the absurd, rather they take
‘a leap of faith’ to escape the absurd. In the Myth of Sisyphus, Camus makes a specific
reference to Jaspers, Shestov, Dostoevsky Kierkegaard and Husserl and argues that after
being acquainted with the absurd they have all taken a ‘leap’ to escape the absurd.
Kierkegaard and Shestov have evoked the idea of god and religion to escape the absurd while
Husserl has resorted to exaltation of rationalism to escape the absurd. Camus compares this to
39
Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part VIII Chapter 12
20 | P a g e
‘suicide.’ Suicide is a way to escape the absurd by instant termination of life. Taking a leap of
faith is therefore nothing more than a ‘philosophical suicide.’
Camus, as an absurdist, rejects suicide and the leap of faith and argues that once one is
confronted with the absurd one must live the absurd rather than escape it. Absurd, defined as
“lucid reasoning noting its limits,”40
must be acknowledged and false hope and desires be
rejected. This would require a constant revolt and constant confrontation.
In the light of above discussion the question we must address is ‘Where can Tolstoy be
located?’ In which of the three categories (Rationalist, Existentialist and Absurdist) can
Tolstoy be placed? Whether Tolstoy leans more towards the existentialists like Kierkegaard
who take a leap of faith to escape the absurd, or Tolstoy sides more with Camus in asserting
that life is absurd and we must live with it. As we investigate the question we shall do so
within a broad paradigm of examining Tolstoy’s perspective on Faith and Morality.
The novel Anna Karenina could have very well ended with the death of Anna. The name of
the novel is Anna Karenina and therefore, intuitively one might say that with the end of Anna
the novel must also end. However, Tolstoy does not end the novel with the death of Anna. He
devotes an entire part (Part 8) after the death of Anna in describing the life of his characters
after Anna’s death and specifically that of Levin. Tolstoy has an intended purpose or rather
intended purposes. The pivotal purpose of Tolstoy extending the novel beyond the death of
Anna was show that the end of Anna was not the morally desired end. Tolstoy conveys this
by providing a contrast between Anna and Levin throughout the novel and especially at the
end. Both Anna and Levin are tormented by questions of meaning and purpose of life. Both
are faced with the absurd. Anna chooses to escape the absurd by committing suicide. Levin,
on the other hand, resorts to study of philosophy and science to understand the meaning of
life in Part 8. However, he finds meaning and “peace” not in science, philosophy and
reasoning but in faith. And morality or the judgement of good, for Tolstoy, is directly
connected with this idea of faith.
A philosophical reading of Levin’s character, especially in Part 8 shall thus show that Tolstoy
by exalting faith, Tolstoy is differing from Camus and drawing closer to Kierkegaard.
Tolstoy and Camus seem to have shown connectedness in reaching the notion of absurd (as
discussed previously) but then they part ways in their dealing of the absurd. While Camus
40
Camus, Myth of Sisyphus. He writes, “Absurd is lucid reasoning noting its limits.”
21 | P a g e
rejects leap of faith as a philosophical suicide, Tolstoy embraces faith not only to deal with
the confrontation with the absurd but also to give mooring to his idea of good and moral.
In the second epilogue of War and Peace Tolstoy tries to explain the role of faith in the
“mysterious forces that move the humanity.” He is not giving any explanation as to what
causes the movement in human life because he calls it “mysterious.” However, he is certain
that those forces “whose laws of motion we do not know41
” cannot be understood by reason
or rationality and that the element of faith plays an important role in that movement. He gives
the following example.
“A locomotive is moving. Someone asks: ‘What moves it?’ A peasant says the devil moves
it. Another man says the locomotive moves because its wheels go round. A third asserts that
the cause of its movement lies in the smoke which the wind carries away. The peasant is
irrefutable. He has devised a complete explanation. To refute him someone would have to
prove to him that there is no devil, or another peasant would have to explain to him that it is
not the devil but a German, who moves the locomotive. Only then, as a result of the
contradiction, will they see that they are both wrong. But the man who says that the
movement of the wheels is the cause refutes himself, for having once begun to analyze he
ought to go on and explain further why the wheels go round; and till he has reached the
ultimate cause of the movement of the locomotive in the pressure of steam in the boiler, he
has no right to stop in his search for the cause.”42
The movement of the locomotive in this quoted extract is simply symbolic. The chief concern
of Tolstoy is the movement of life of men and that of humanity. However, as regards to his
chief concern, there are two points that one could draw from this example of Tolstoy. First,
Tolstoy is rejecting reason as a tool to explain the movement of the locomotive. Second, and
more importantly, he is exalting the faith of the peasant that the devil moves it. In doing so,
the peasant has given both—complete and irrefutable explanation of the movement of the
locomotive. The same is true for the movement in the lives of men and humanity wherein
faith plays an important role in that movement. He rejects the method of History which
attempts to understand human life and humanity through reason and has no space for faith as
a driving force in the movement of humanity. In fact Tolstoy sees a correlation of faith with
the very possibility of life. Andrei Bolkonsky expresses Tolstoy’s opinion: “Pierre was right
41
Tolstoy, War and Peace, Epilogue 1 Chapter 1 42
Tolstoy, War and Peace, Epilogue 2 Chapter III
22 | P a g e
when he said that one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and I
now believe in it. Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be
happy.”43
When Andrei Bolkonsky who was a man who had rejected faith in God and belief
of his sister Masha earlier, died after getting mortally wounded in the Battle of Brordino the
only thing kept saying was; ‘One must Love, One must Live, One must believe.” Regarding
reason and rationality Tolstoy writes, “If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason,
then all possibility of life is destroyed.”44
Let us now return to the discussion on the character of Levin and his speech that we quoted at
the start of this discussion. Levin, after having not been able to understand the underlying
meaning and purpose of life and resolve the internal conflict that tormented him despite his
scholarly studies of science and philosophy, is seen in Part 8 having a conversation with the
peasants. The seemingly trivial conversation proved to be an awakening moment:
“ ‘Oh, well, of course, folks are different. One man lives for his own wants and nothing else,
like Mituh, he only thinks of filling his belly, but Fokanitch is a righteous man. He lives for
his soul. He does not forget God.’ ‘How thinks of God? How does he live for his soul?’ Levin
almost shouted. ‘Why, to be sure, in truth, in God’s way. Folks are different. Take you now,
you wouldn’t wrong a man...”45
Morality and faith in God, are evidently seen to have been connected here by Tolstoy. An
insight of Kierkegaard’s philosophy is also made evident when a little later in the next
chapter, Tolstoy endeavours to show how Levin’s rediscovery of his faith led him to freedom
and emancipation.
“He was aware of something new in his soul, and joyfully tested this new thing, not yet
knowing what it was. (...)
‘Fyodor says that Kirillov lives for his belly. That’s comprehensible and rational. All of us as
rational beings can’t do anything else but live for our belly. And all of a sudden the same
Fyodor says that one mustn’t live for one’s belly, but must live for truth, for God, and at a
hint I understand him!’ (...)
43
Tolstoy, War and Peace (a speech by Andrei Bolkonsky) 44
Tolstoy, War and Peace, Epilogue 1 Chapter 1 45
Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part 8 Chapter 11
23 | P a g e
‘What is it makes me glad? What have I discovered? ‘I have discovered nothing. I have only
found out what I knew. I understand the force that in the past gave me life, and now too gives
me life. I have been set free from falsity, I have found the Master.”46
Having discovered his ‘Master’ Levin is ‘set free.’ This connection between faith and
freedom directly relates to Kierkegaard’s idea of the ‘leap of faith’ that delivers the individual
to the last stage of the dialectic which is the religious stage giving him the maximum freedom
and possibility.
The character of Levin is of critical importance. Tolstoy creates certain dominant characters
in his novels through whom he expresses his philosophy. In War and Peace it was Pierre
through whom he states his opinions and ideas. Character of Levin in Anna Karenina can be
seen as Pierre’s counterpart. He exists to provide a contrast to Anna and the meaning to the
opening line of the novel: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in
its own way.” While Anna symbolised the latter half of the sentence, Levin was the former
half.
46
Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part 8 Chapter 12
24 | P a g e
5. Concluding Remarks
We had opened this essay by making a reference to the question that Tolstoy raises in
Confessions “Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not
destroy?” As we conclude our discussions on Death, Desires and Faith and Morality let us
revisit the question with which we began and ask ‘Has Tolstoy discovered the meaning of
life?’ ‘Has he discovered the ‘Truth’ that Tolstoy has been looking for in all his works?’
Whether or not Tolstoy has been able to arrive at any kind of finality is subject to
interpretations and different commentators on Tolstoy have different perspectives. However,
in the light of this essay, one could conclude that Tolstoy’s perspectives and views have
shown some level of evolution over time but the fundamental tenets that constitute the core of
the Tolstoyan way of life have remained constant. This essay has highlighted those
fundamental tenets that make the core of Tolstoyan way of life and has interpreted them in
the light of Existentialist philosophy. However, in conclusion to the essay let us dwell upon
these fundamental tenets discussed in the essay which have remained stable amidst slight and
apparent evolution of Tolstoy’s views. For this purpose let us consider the discussion on
death.
It has been argued by certain commentators that Tolstoy’s views on death as reflected in War
and Peace and Anna Karenina underwent an evolution by the time he wrote The Death of
Ivan Illytch which was after a time gap of about ten years. In Anna Karenina, it may be
argued, the pivot of the plot was on Anna’s suicide whereas in The Death of Ivan Illytch
Ivan’s death is a very peaceful one not even remotely related to the violent suicide of Anna.
Though there is some merit in the argument, however, in view of the discussions in this essay
one may argue that there is no fundamental change in Tolstoy’s perspective if one considers
Levin as the moral hero of Anna Karenina. It is the character of Levin and not that of Anna
that has been given the prominent and pivotal role of bringing out Tolstoy’s own perspectives
as is the character of Pierre in War and Peace. It is made quite evident in the essay that the
same final salvation is reached by all of Tolstoy’s prominent characters: Pierre, Andrei
Bolkonsky (War and Peace), Levin (Anna Karenina) and Ivan (The Death of Ivan Illytch).
There might be some outward dissimilarities as dictated by the plot of each of the novels but
the core tenets that constitute the way of life that Tolstoy endeavours to bring out and
25 | P a g e
philosophise remain constant. Those fundamental tenets have been picked up in this essay
and interpreted in the light of existentialist philosophy.
Through this existentialist interpretation of the Tolstoyan way of life that this essay has
endeavoured to develop, one could also conclude that Tolstoy shows patterns of similarity
with several existentialist philosophers like Heidegger, Camus and Kierkegaard but at the
same time Tolstoy has developed an entirely independent and autonomous philosophy of his
own. He may relate to Heidegger, Camus and Kierkegaard but as the essay highlights Tolstoy
enjoys an originality of his own. Therefore this essay seeks to conclude that Tolstoy has
developed his own original version of existentialism reflections of which are found in totality
of the Tolstoyan way of life as depicted in various of his works discussed in the essay.
26 | P a g e
Select Bibliography
I. Works of Tolstoy referred to in the essay:
1. Anna Karenina, Penguin Classics Edition
2. War and Peace, Wordsworth Classics Edition
3. The Death of Ivan Illytch, Electronic Classics Series
4. A Confessions, Merchant Books Publication
II. Books:
1. Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, Justin O’ Brein translation, 1955
2. Being in Time by Heidegger, Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Reprint
edition (22 July 2008)
3. Understanding Tolstoy by Andrew D. Kauffmann, The Ohio University Press
4. Tolstoy and Chekhov by Logan Spiers, Cambridge University Press, 1971
5. Russian Literature and Ideology: Herzen, Dostoevsky, Leontiev, Tolstoy,
Fadeyev by Nicholas RzhevskyUniversity of Illinios Press
6. Religion from Tolstoy to Camus by Walter Kauffman digitized edition
(degitized by internet archives)
III. Essays, Commentaries and Papers
1. Life and Death: Spiritual Philosophy in Anna Karenina by Jillian Avalon,
2. Anna Karenina Revisited by Nanthiel Goodman, Source: Jstor
3. Scapegoating, Double-Plotting, and the Justice of Anna Karenina by
Catherine Brown Source, The Modern Language Review, Vol. 106, No. 1
(January 2011)
4. Absurdity, Incongruity and Laughter by Bob Plant, Philosophy,Vol. 84, No.
327 (Jan., 2009)
5. Existentialism and Death by Walter Kaufmann, Chicago Review,Vol. 13, No.
2 (Summer, 1959)
6. Introduction: The “Late” Tolstoi by Jeff Love, Slavic Review, Vol. 70, No. 4
(WINTER 2011)
27 | P a g e
7. Psychology, Rhetoric and Morality in Anna Karenina: At the Bottom of Whose
Heart? by C. J. G. Turner Source: The Slavic and East European Journal,Vol.
39, No. 2 (Summer, 1995)
IV. Lectures
1. Tolstoy’s Ivan Died so that We can Live by Andrew D. Kauffman at Regent
University 2009
2. Dying Alone, the Badness of Death by Prof. Kagan, Yale University Open
Lecture Series, Lecture 16
Top Related